I knew Andrea Currie through yoga, when I lived in Halifax in the early-mid-1980’s. She joined the a capella group Four The Moment while I was still there, and I loved her singing voice as much as her soft speaking voice and gentle manner.

She once made and gave me a string of origami paper cranes, which, as I understand it, have been a Japanese symbol of longevity and became a symbol of peace after a little girl, victim of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing, took on the project of making as many paper cranes as she could before she died of cancer.

Voice of Women is a non-partisan Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) advocating for a world without war. They used to sell the poster I describe in the poem, and I hung my copy of it in the hallway where it could remind me every day to be hopeful that each and every little voice does make a difference.

Voice of Andrea

Through dusty glass pane
the branches outside my window
seem to bathe in smokey blue-grey.
They nodin rhythmto the heartbeatof the wind,
sweep the illusory thickness
like fingers trailing thoughtlessly through water.

A leaf becomes deliberate in its wobble,
strokes,
with licking motion,
the reflection
of my gently-spinning paper cranes.
Double panes against the cold
have multiplied the mobile into many ghosts,
potentialities in smokey limbo.For every voice that speaks aloudthere are ten more whispers dawning.

On the wall in the hallway
a Voice-of-Women poster
tells the story
of the coalmouse asking
what is the weight of a snowflake.
“Nothing more than nothing”
says the dove in reply.
How then does a branchbreak
under the fallof one last crystal?Only one more voice is neededto bring peace into the world.

Andrea’s voiceis sweet and true when she sings.
Andrea’s voiceis gentle when she talks.Soft like a whisper,
like a delicate miracle of water taking shape,using harsh conditions of coldto makepatterns of intricate beauty.